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Pope Leo XIV on Friday named a former undocumented migrant as bishop of West Virginia, weeks after a high-profile clash with US President Donald Trump.
The US-born leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics has been highly critical of Trump over immigration and the Middle East war.
The Vatican announced the nomination of Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, 55, currently an auxiliary bishop in Washington, to the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in the poor mountainous state of West Virginia.
Born in El Salvador, Menjivar-Ayala migrated to the United States in 1990, according to a biography on the Washington diocese website.
He has spoken in interviews about being born into poverty and fleeing conflict in his native country to arrive in the United States as a refugee.
Read Also: Pope Prays For Cessation Of ‘Roar Of Bombs’ In Middle East
After being initially detained in Mexico trying to get to the United States, he said in an interview last year that he paid a bribe to get out and crossed the border at Tijuana.
Menjivar-Ayala, who is fluent in English, Spanish and Italian, was ordained as a priest in 2004 and became a bishop in 2023.
Trump and the pontiff have been at odds over US immigration enforcement and the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Leo last month declared Trump’s threat to destroy Iran “unacceptable” and urged Americans to demand that US lawmakers “work for peace.”
That prompted scathing criticism from the US president, who slammed the pontiff in a social media post as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”
Trump said he was “not a big fan of Pope Leo” and that he does not “want a pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump campaigned for the White House pledging to deport millions of undocumented migrants and a number of top US Catholic leaders have been critical of the sweeping nationwide crackdown.
The pope has called the treatment of migrants in the United States “extremely disrespectful” and said “we have to look for ways of treating people humanely.”
Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, expressed concern recently in an open letter over the “current climate of fear and polarization” in the United States.
And Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, a top ally of the pope, urged Americans to contact their members of Congress and tell them to vote against renewed funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which has been spearheading the crackdown on migrants.
Pope Leo XIV on Sunday prayed the “roar of bombs” in the Middle East will cease, as the war triggered by US-Israeli air strikes on Iran extended into its ninth day.
News from the region “continues to arouse deep dismay”, the US-born pope said at the end of the Angelus prayer.
“Added to the episodes of violence and devastation and the widespread climate of hatred and fear, is the fear that the conflict will spread, and that other countries in the region, including beloved Lebanon, may once again sink into instability,” he said.
On Sunday, Iran was preparing to reveal its new supreme leader, after US-Israeli air strikes destroyed fuel dumps and triggered fires that choked much of Tehran in a thick blanket of smoke.
Read Also: Trump Attends Return Of First US Troops Killed In Iran War
Iranian missile-and-drone retaliation has targeted many Gulf countries and further afield in the Middle East.
US President Donald Trump has refused to rule out sending American ground troops into Iran, but continues to insist that the war is progressing speedily.
Leo said he prayed “that the roar of the bombs may cease, the weapons may fall silent, and a space for dialogue may open in which the voices of the peoples may be heard”.
US President Donald Trump attended the return Saturday of the bodies of the first six US soldiers killed during the escalating war with Iran.
Trump, wearing a white “USA” baseball cap and accompanied by several Cabinet members, saluted as each flag-draped case was carried from a military transport plane at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the remains of US troops killed overseas are returned to American soil.
The troops were killed last Sunday when a drone struck a key US command center in Kuwait, a day after the United States and Israel launched a sweeping military campaign against Iran.
Trump, wearing a white “USA” baseball cap and accompanied by several Cabinet members, saluted as each flag-draped case was carried from a military transport plane at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the remains of US troops killed overseas are returned to American soil.
